Warwick's Craig DiBona directs, shoots ‘Rain'

Warwick — As a young college student simultaneously at Boston University and Emerson College, Craig DiBona shot a documentary about a faith healer called “My Word.” He sat with the man night after night, watching as the believers came through with food and hope. He was amazed at what he witnessed—both in the people and the healer. But he didn’t film right away. No, even as a young student, DiBona saw how people reacted to the camera. So he waited, patiently, until they didn’t notice it anymore. His school entered it in the Atlanta Film Festival. And it won. It became the first film in a career that has spannedmore than 35 years and has taken DiBona to nearly every corner of the world. But he always comes home. Warwick is home now to DiBona. And that is why this visionary man in the world of cinema is having his new film, “Rain,” which is based on a V.C. Andrews’ best-selling novel, screened at the Warwick Drive-In on July 12. DiBona has worked as a cameraman for directors such as John Huston, Francis Ford Coppola, Penny Marshall, Alan Pakula, and Robert DeNiro. “Rain” is a work of love for DiBona; not only was he the director of photography but he directs the film as well, a rare, rare achievement in Hollywood. “Rain” intrigued him as a project. It had all of the elements of a great motion picture—love, secrets, ambition, dreams, hope, mystery—and it was written by Andrew Niederman, writing as V.C. Andrews. Niederman, a former teacher in Sullivan County, also is the screenwriter of “Rain,” and has authored nearly 100 novels, including “The Devil’s Advocate,” which also became a major motion picture. But few if any up to this point have directed a film as well as served as its director of photography. As DiBona explained, the director deals with the actors. The directory of photography sets up all of the shots, the camera angles, the lighting, and then shoots them himself and with his staff. Quite an undertaking. The movie stars Brooklyn Sudano, a young actress who just sparkles in this movie, whose real-life mother is singer Donna Summer. The film also stars Faye Dunaway, Khandi Alexander (CSI: Miami), Robert Loggia, and Giancarlo Esposito.  DiBona has movie-making in his blood. His father was in the equipment business, General Camera, in New York City. “When I was still in college, I shot the chase scenes in the movie “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” said DiBona. “I was supposed to shoot from inside of a subway train traveling at 70 miles per hour. But I couldn’t shoot through the scratched window. So I stood out in front of it, with the camera, while the train traveled at 70 miles per hour. It was crazy. But I was in college. You’re invincible when you are in college.” Shortly after beginning his career, DiBona worked for Panavision and helped develop the Panaglide Project, a stabilizing device for camera operators. “An Unmarried Woman” was the first major movie the technology was used in. Since DiBona was athletic—he played college basketball and could run backwards with the 85-pound camera attached to him—he was the first to use the new technology back in the 1970s. Since then, DiBona has worked with some of the industry’s best actors (Anthony Hopkins is the greatest ever in his estimation, and Robin Williams is the funniest by far), directors and crew. Some of his credits include “Godfather III,” “You’ve Got Mail,” “Meet Joe Black,” “A Bronx Tale,” “A League of Their Own,” “Prizzi’s Honor” and “Cadillac Man.” Now, although he gets about 10 scripts each month, DiBona chooses his projects prudently. “Now that I’ve got kids, I want to be home more,” said DiBona, whose pride emanates when talking about his wife, Bobbi Jo, and their two children, daughter Noel, now an eighth-grader at the Warwick Middle School, and son Derek, a fifth-grader at Sanfordville. He met Bobbi Jo, an actress, when they worked together on a television series in the mid-80s called “Hometown.” “That was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me,” he admits. And he’s given his children the wonderful hometown of Warwick. Born in Yonkers, DiBona grew up in Scarsdale. “Warwick is what Scarsdale was back in the 1950s and 60s,” said DiBona, who had a weekend house in Upper Greenwood Lake since the 1980s, which was when he discovered Warwick. “I knew I would want to raise my kids here.” He moved to Warwick in 1999 and built his current home in 2001. And for this two-time cancer survivor who has met and worked with some of the most talented and well-known people in the world, it all comes back to home. As DiBona noted: “I live a normal life in an abnormal business.”